It was just last week that I took delivery of my brand new Veritas Dovetail Saw.  I have used it several times and have gotten a lot of practice with it cutting straight lines to a marked strike line.

However, I am kicking myself today for making the move just a bit too early.

If only the folks at Veritas had let me know about their newest and most innovative saw they have ever released.  Today, the wraps were taken off of the Veritas Variable Gang Saw.

Not only is this saw made to the same high-quality specifications as the Veritas Dovetail Saw, but it goes one (actually two) better.  This triple-saw uses a dual-rod rotating axis assembly, which guarantees that by canting one blade, you can get the other to line up perfectly.

Say you want to cut a set of dovetails across the edge of a board… Simply by rotating some heavy duty brass handles, you can align a perfect 6:1, 8:1 or 14 degree dovetail pitch on each saw blade.  One full turn, and you can cut the opposite slope of the tails in one pass.

The same ease of use can be found in the adjustments to cut the pins.

This saw really takes all of the guesswork out of cutting dovetails, ensuring an airtight fit with minimal effort.

Maybe they’ll take my dovetail saw back in return?

This is the newest tool in my arsenal – a fresh-out-of-the-package Veritas Dovetail Saw.  It may have arrived at my home just yesterday, but the journey to this tool has taken nearly a decade.

When I first started woodworking, my first saw was a Craftsman fine toothed panel saw.  It was a great saw for what I was doing, but it was huge and – yes – I was also lured away by the siren’s song of power tools.  Through  the following years, I have gotten my hands on some large  big-box Japanese style saws, a reversible ‘dovetail’ saw that flipped on its offset handle and some entry-level Japanese style saws from some of the larger online woodworking retailers.  They all did so-so work, and I always found myself making excuses for my poor saw work.

I thought I was in the clear about a year ago when I bought a new dozuki from Lee Valley.  It did cut beautifully, but the problem I had was that getting a grip on the traditional handle was kind of tricky.  I found myself gripping the saw slightly differently every time I picked it up, and my cuts would suffer.

While at the recent Woodworking Show in Tampa, I made a beeline to the Lee Valley booth.  There they were, all of the tools in the catalogs that I had drooled over for years.  Planes, chisels and measuring devices as far as the booth stretched.  While looking at all of the goodies, I saw the new Veritas Dovetail Saw sitting on a shelf.  I had read so many reviews of it, and I had been told by several woodworkers that I might be more successful with a western-style saw, I just had to pick it up and give it a try.  I was hooked and ordered one on the spot.

The saw is exceptionally well made, which has been my experience with all of the hand tools I have used from the Veritas line.  It’s a substantially built saw with absolutely no wiggle or slop in the handle (which is held to the saw with post and nut similar to a plane handle).  The grip, which has been modeled after an antique saw’s, seems to fit my hand perfectly.  The grip seems small at first, but you have to realize it’s not designed for you to clench your fist over.  Simply wrap your thumb and three fingers around the handle, and point your index finger down the saw’s spine.  This way, you will be ‘pointing’ to where your saw should go.  This is a very comfortable grip, and no matter how many times I picked up the saw, my hand rested in exactly the same spot.

The saw’s teeth are angled back to 60 degrees, which is drastically different than my dozuki’s teeth, which are 90 degrees to the blade.  The product literature says it’s filed that way because it makes the saw easier to start… something I have struggled with on cheaper saws.

After handling the saw for a while, I just had to put it to use.  I clamped a piece of red oak in my vise and started cutting.  The saw starts easily by slightly tipping the nose down and pushing gently.  Not having to worry about my grip, I was able to focus on my body positioning and arm mechanics.  The saw cuts exceptionally well, taking about a dozen strokes with very minimal downward pressure to cut a one inch deep kerf.  The stiff blade and minimal tooth set helped keep the saw on track as I worked it through the cut.

The results were impressive.  Here is the board I used with the Veritas saw cuts in the group to the left and cuts made by my dozuki on the right.  While the Japanese saw’s kerf was slightly narrower, the Veritas blade cut a very fine kerf as well.

After playing with the saw for a while, I finally buffed the blade with a little furniture paste wax, set the blade guard over the teeth and put it in the saw drawer of my tool chest.

A tool like this will be getting lots of use in my shop!

This was one of those purchases I made because I ‘thought’ I should have one.  It turns out that while I don’t use it for every project, it has become an essential tool for several of them.

This is a Delta model 28-276 14″ band saw I bought at Lowe’s about four years ago.  Oh, sure, I looked at some of those fancy smaller models (the guys at Home Depot really wanted to sell me the 12″ Ryobi band saw), but I decided on this model because 14″ is a common size for most home machines. That way, it  would accept the most common upgrades.  Boy, am I happy I considered that.

I set it up in my shop exactly as described in the manual, turned it on and – boy – was I disappointed by the performance.  Unlike my Ridgid table saw I had set up a few years earlier, I discovered that band saws take some fiddling to get them to work properly.

Yes, this is a warning to all of you prospective band saw owners – don’t be disappointed if you don’t get perfect cuts right off the bat. It take some time.

Some things I like about the saw include the blade tension release control, which means I don’t have to change the tension setting after a day at the saw.  I can just flip the tension off and take the pressure off the blade.  I also added a rolling tool stand to the purchase, so I can move the saw around the shop as necessary.

Once I got the saw tuned up – it took a day or so – things started to improve dramatically.  The saw began to track more easily.  The cuts were a little smoother.  Things were definitely looking up.

I would strongly recommend that when you buy a band saw, you get a good band saw book to go along with it.  My choice was Cutting Edge Band Saw Tips and Tricks.  A book like this will give you far more information than the manual ever could.

The monumental step in my bandsaw experiece was when I started to upgrade some items on the saw.  First up, I ditched the original blade that came with the saw and bought some replacement Viking/Timberwolf blades.  These are made of a Swedish silicon steel and cut very true.  The product manual says you can run these blades at a lower tension, but I have noticed some tracking issues if I lower the tension to the recommended levels.

I also recently added the Kreg bandsaw fence.  As with the saw, I am still in the stages of fiddling with the fence to get the best fence performance.  It is a solid and easy to use fence, so I’m sure once I get it tuned up, I’ll be in the butter zone.

I have used the saw to cut curves and resaw, and the 3/4 hp motor will sometimes struggle with harder woods.  If I slow my feed rate, I can get good performance.

Some upgrades I would like to make to the saw include adding a task light to the bottom of the top case.  Where I have the saw right now, it’s not in the best lighting situation, so that will have to be addressed.  Also, one day, I would like to add the riser block.  Sure, I’ll gain an additional 6″ of cutting capacity, but I’ll have to buy new blades.  Also, I’d like to upgrade the original steel guide block with some type of bearing system to control the blade,  but that’s something to consider in the future.

All in all, the saw has been a decent performer and has served me well.  However, if I had to do it again, I would spend the extra cash to get a more capable model which would include a more powerful motor, a larger resaw capacity, a better guide roller system, a quality stock fence and a mobile base as part of the standard package.  Probably would have cost less than the saw’s original price and the upgrade money I have spent so far.

Live and learn!

You can’t expect to do good work at woodworking if you can’t measure accurately.  Whether it’s getting an exact 45 degrees on a miter, cutting a mortise to an exact dimension or marking an 8:1 dovetail.

To help me achieve accuracy in my shop, I turn to a pretty decent selection of tools I have amassed over the past few years.

Let’s go from the back row, left to right –

A Veritas saddle square and saddle miter square.  These were some awesome scores from the folks at Lee Valley (Remember, the holidays are coming up…).  They make it easy to transfer measurements from one face of a board to another.  I find myself using these babies on almost every project.

My combination square.  Not the top of the line model – I picked this up at Woodcraft for about $35 on sale.  I’ve tested it several times and found it to be accurate.  A great tool to set blade and bit heights, mark out sections to be cut…  It’s a multi-use tool.

An electronic t-bevel gauge.  I have a regular t-bevel, but it can’t actually tell me what the angle is.  This one comes with a digital readout and makes transferring and bisecting angles a breeze.

Down a row, you see my Veritas setup blocks. I use these to set up most of my machines.  There’s nothing more sensitive than touch, and I can tell when I lay a 1/4″ bar next to a router bit, I can get it exactly to 1/4″.  I love these things!

My decimal fraction calipers.  Sure, I could get an electronic setup that goes from fractions to metric to decimal inches, but this one – so far – has answered the call.  Your work becomes a whole lot easier when you can get this kind of precision.  For instance, you can use the ‘inside’ measurement prongs to measure a mortise, then the ‘oustide’ jaws to measure the tenon… slick!

A new set of Groz dividers.  Just got this after trying to use some plastic dividers I culled from my kids’ school supply kits.  WOW, what a difference.  Great for scribing things to walls and measuring circles.

A Veritas wheel marking gauge.  I have used a wooden gauge with a pin, but this one is killer!  The wheel is easy to sharpen and gives very clean marks on the wood both with and across the grain. I have the model with the marked post, so don’t have to measure to know I’m at a particular measurement.

A good old tape measure.  Great for marking out long measurements, checking assemblies for square… I’m sure everyone has at least one.  I use a 16′ model and limit myself to just using that one for projects.  This way, I don’t run into problems if two tapes don’t quite measure up…

A tiny Groz engineer’s square. The small size makes it easy to sneak up to a table saw or band saw blade to ensure things are square.  Very handy..

Finally, a Veritas marking knife. This one is awesome, because you can use it either left or right handed.  The back side of the knife is dead flat, so you can run it along a straight edge to get a crisp mark.  And, nothing beats the accuracy of a clean slice when you absolutely, positively have to make the cut the right size.

Some things that didn’t make the photo include a carpenter’s square, some speed squares, and two steel rules… one a center finding model.

By using these tools and taking my time, I can get pretty decent results in my woodworking.